Piano sounding board



Feb. 4, 1969 E. R. ASTIN ETAL 3,425,308

PIANO SOUNDING BOARD Filed June 25, 1966 v INVENTOR.

EDWIN R. ASTIN DONALD L. WRIGHT THEIR ATTORNEY United States Patent 3,425,308 PIANO SOUNDING BOARD Edwin R. Astin, 519 West 3000 South, Bountiful, Utah 84010, and Donald L. Weight, 206 West Second North,

Salt Lake City, Utah 84103 Filed June 23, 1966, Ser. No. 559,958

US. Cl. 84-192 6 C Int. Cl. G10c 3/06 laims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE This invention relates to an upright piano, and in particular, to a sounding board for upright pianos which improves the quality and playing characteristics of such pianos.

In recent years, pianos designed to be used in the home have become very popular. Because of the size of the rooms in most homes, pianos used therein generally must be small. For this reason, upright pianos are often the only type suited for such use. Heretofore, upright pianos, while fulfilling the musical need in most homes, have lacked the quality and other playing characteristics found only in the larger grand type pianos. The inherent defects foud in such upright pianos generally result from their undersized sounding board and weak bridge. The need has long been felt for an upright piano which is small enough to be suitable for use in the average home and yet which overcomes the heretofore encountered defects.

It is accordingly an object of our invention to provide an upright piano which overcomes the aforementioned defects and disadvantages heretofore found in such pianos.

It is a further object of our invention to provide an upright piano having a sounding board of substantially increased size.

A still further object of our invention is to provide an upright piano with a rigid bridge which prevents weakness in various sections of the piano.

Still further objects of our invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art as the invention is better understood by reference to the detailed description appearing hereinafter.

We have found that the foregoing objects and attendant advantages may be achieved by providing an upright piano with a sounding board which is spaced between the pianos wrest plank and said pianos back side and preferably at an angle with the face of the pianos wrest plank. By constructing the sounding board in this fashion its size is substantially increased, and in addition, the size of the bridge, which is attached to the sounding board, can be substantially increased. We have also found that by placing a reverse crown in the sounding board, i.e., having a curve which is convex away from and behind the front face of the pianos wrest plank, the piano may be strung so that the bridge is placed under tension wherein certain, other additional advantages are obtained.

So that the invention may be more readily understood and carried into effect, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which are offered by way of example only and are not to be taken as limiting the invention, the scope of which is defined by the appended claims, which obviously embrace equivalent structures and processes.

3,425,308 Patented Feb. 4, 1969 ice FIGURE 1 is a side view of our upright piano showing the sounding board and its relation to the pianos back side, wrest plank and bridge.

FIGURE 2 is a sectional view of FIGURE 1 taken along line 2-2 which shows the relationship between the pianos bridge, wrest plank and metal stringing plate.

Referring now more particularly to the drawings, FIG- URE 1 shows the side view of upright piano 10 of our invention. The piano is provided with sounding board 12 which is positioned so that it passes behind back face 14 of wrest plank 16. Preferably, said sounding board 12 is positioned at an angle R with plane yy which plane is formed by front face 18 of said wrest plank 16. Angle R is preferably 0.5 to 20 degrees, and most preferably, 0.1 to 15 degrees. In conventional upright pianos heretofore used, sounding board 12 is positioned in a plane which is substantially parallel with plane yy, i.e., parallel with front face 18 of wrest plank 16, and the upper edge 20 of said sounding board 12 contacts bottom edge 22 of wrest plank 16. However, as hown in FIGURE 1, sounding board 12 of our invention passes behind back face 14 to a position between said back face 14 and piano back 28 and is only connected to wrest plank 16 by connecting block 24 which contacts said wrest plank 16 proximate its top edge 26. By positioning sounding board 12 in this fashion, the size of said board 12 is substantially increased thereby giving piano 10 greater amplitude and sustaining power, i.e., a longer decay period,

Preferably, sounding board 12 is shaped to form a reverse crown, i.e., sounding board 12 is curved convexly outward from front face 18 of wrest plank 16, i.e., plane yy, and concavely towards back 28 of piano 10. By shaping board 12 in this fashion, clearer tone is imparted to said piano 10, and weakness in said pianos upper middle treble section is eliminated by increasing the size of bridge 34, as hereinafter described.

FIGURE 2 shows a sectional view of FIGURE 1 taken along line 22. As shown in the figure, metal stringing plate 30 is attached to front face 18 of wrest plank 16 and to bottom connecting plate 32 wherein it lies in a plane substantially parallel with plane y-y. As also shown, bridge 34 is connected to sounding board 12 to impart movement to said board 12 when piano strings 44, connected to bridge 34, are struck. Said bridge 34 extends outwardly from said sounding board 12 and passes through ports 36 and 38 in metal plate 30. To pass between sounding board 12 and connecting member 40 in metal plate 30, which separates ports 36 and 38, notch 42 is provided in bridge 34. Generally said notch 42 is positioned in the upper middle treble section of the piano thereby causing tones in this section to sound weak if bridge 34 is not sufficiently massive at this point to over come this defect. By passing sounding board 12 behind wrest plank 16 and by forming a reverse crown in said board 12, according to our invention, bridge 34 can be notched as herein indicated without substantially weakening it since the distance between sounding board 12 and metal plate 30 is substantially increased.

Piano 10 is strung by connecting wires 44 to pegs 46, which are secured to wrest plank 16, and to pegs 48, which are attached to connecting plate 50 which is in turn secured to metal plate 30. Said wires 44 are then attached to connectors 52 which are screwed to bridge 34. Heretofore, because of the position of sounding board with respect to the wrest plank in conventional upright pianos, bridge 34 had to be positioned so that strings 44 placed a compressive force on said bridge 34. However, by positioning sounding board 12 according to the method of our invention, as previously described, bridge 34 can be positioned so that its top surface is spaced between sounding board 12 and front face 18 of wrest plank 16 wherein strings or wires 44 pull outwardly on said bridge away from piano back 28, i.e., tension is placed thereon, without decreasing the size of said bridge. We have found that this stringing method substantially improves the quality of the tone of the piano.

It is to be understood that the term reverse crown as used in the specification and claims refers to the direction of curvature of sounding board 12 with respect to front face 18 of wrest plank 16, and piano back 28, i.e., sounding board 12 curves convexly out and away from front face 18 and concavely towards piano back 28.

Whereas there is here illustrated and specifically described a certain preferred construction which is presently regarded as the best mode of carrying out the invention, it should be understood that the various changes may be made and other construction adopted without departing from the inventive subject matter particularly pointed out and claimed.

We claim:

1. In an upright piano having a top face, a back face, and a wrest plank extending to said top face and spaced apart from said back face, a sounding board passing between the back side of said wrest plank and said back face of said piano with the top edge of said board extending to said top face, and means secured to the sounding board proximate said top edge for connecting said sounding board to said wrest plank.

2. The upright piano of claim 1 wherein said wrest plank has a front face and said sounding board is positioned at an angle with said front face.

3. The upright piano of claim 1 wherein abridge is attached to said sounding board for connecting piano wires thereto which bridge is positioned so that said piano wires place a tension thereon to pull said bridge outwardly away from said back face of said piano in a direction towards said back side of said wrest plank.

4. The upright piano of clai1n2 wherein a bridge is attached to said sounding board for connecting piano wires thereto which bridge is positioned so that said piano wires place a tension thereon to pull said bridge outwardly away from said back face of said piano in a direction towards said back side of said wrest plank.

5. The upright piano of claim 1 wherein said sounding board has a reverse crown so that it curves convexly out and away from said front face of said wrest plank and concavely towards said back face of said piano.

6. The upright piano of claim 2 wherein said sounding board has a reverse crown so that it curves convexly out and away from said front face of said wrest plank and concavely towards said back face of said piano.

References Cited FOREIGN PATENTS 7/1895 Germany. 10/1908 France. 

